July 17, 2016: May God’s words alone be spoken, may God’s words alone be heard.  Amen.

So, yesterday I caught my first Pokémon, “Squirtle” the turtle.  Does anyone else think there is some symmetry to that – my first Pokémon, the one found right in front of my truck, was a turtle – yup.  Of course, if you have no idea what the heck I am talking about – you are not alone.

Pokémon Go is a new augmented reality game that is moving mostly young people and fools like me to get up off the sofa and out into the streets.  Essentially, the game allows players to capture, battle, and train virtual creatures, called Pokémon, who appear on device screens as though in the real world. It makes use of GPS and the phone’s camera.  In other words, it would be like being able to capture an animated mickey mouse, who seemed to appear right on your front lawn.

There are also Poké Stops, where you can find items needed to lure these creatures to you, and many Poké Stops are – get this – churches!  Oh what a fitting image that is – the church as a place one can find the things they need. They are also at landmarks, and loads of other places, including the rotunda in the glen across the street where we held our Mass on the Grass…with Brass!, which would have been augmented itself by folks wandering through the service playing this virtual game, had it been available at the time.

Now, here’s the funny part, there are also these things called gyms, where players can join together in virtual battles.  Guess where the nearest Pokémon gym is…you’re sitting in it!  Yup, Christ Church is a Pokémon gym – heck, I can’t get my body to a gym in the real world, but I can certainly get to this one in the virtual world.  So to all of you – you can now say you went to the gym this week!  You gotta love it!

Still, I felt a little guilty about catching this animated turtle – you know I would, right. I should feel more guilty, I suppose, about wasting time on the game rather than on my sermon. Oh wait…there’s a sermon in that, isn’t there.

Now, as I posted yesterday on a friend’s Facebook page: “Leave it to a man to think that listening to him speak is the be all, end all (and sitting doing nothing while a woman works in the kitchen)…Okay okay – the man in question IS Jesus after all, so there is that God thing, but still.”

See, this gospel, for a lot of folks, has been on the top 10 list of annoying scripture readings – right next to that pesky one about divorce, and the other about doing good to those who persecute you – not to mention that ridiculous one about women keeping silent.  And this feeling is particularly true for women, because for far too long the church used this text through the centuries to hold women back – to define, really limit, women’s roles in the church. But that isn’t what is really being said here.  If the two people in the story were Peter and James, we wouldn’t assume that the narrative should describe men’s roles, so let’s stop with that already.  Because the truth is, given all that is going on in the world today, this is a gospel we all need right now, so let’s really get to the heart of it.

Now, as we heard, Martha sees Jesus and his band of followers, invites them in to her home, and begins to do as anyone would, to make things comfortable for her guests.  That likely meant preparing food, setting out water to wash with, or other things one might do for travelers who have walked a long way on dusty roads.  It is her home, and as the hostess with the mostess, she intends to do what her faith (and ours) requires.  But her sister Mary takes the place of a disciple, at the feet of Jesus, listening intently to him.  Martha is NOT amused, and wants Jesus to tell Mary to get up and get to work.  But Jesus says to her, “Martha, Martha, you are worried and distracted by many things; there is need of only one thing. Mary has chosen the better part, which will not be taken away from her.”

Dang it Jesus, what exactly do you mean by “the better” part?

Hospitality is important, or so other stories with Jesus would tell us.  Remember the Good Samaritan last week, or the sending of the 70 the week before that?  Or, how about the Pharisee Simon being rebuked by Jesus for not being like Martha is here, a good host, which we heard in the gospel lesson from a few weeks back.  No, it is clear from everything Jesus talked about, from the laws of hospitality found throughout the Hebrew scriptures, that Jesus, being a Jew, would never have rebuked someone for being a good host.  So, if that isn’t it, what is going on here, and why does it matter to us now?

Since it is baseball season, I want to tell you a baseball story.  “Connie Mack was one of the greatest managers in the history of baseball.” According to Wikipedia, Connie was “the longest-serving manager in Major League Baseball history, holding the records for wins (3,731), [and also] losses (3,948), games managed (7,755).  His victory total [was] almost 1,000 more than any other manager.”[1]  I read that “One of the secrets of his success was that he knew how to lead and inspire [his players]. He knew that people were individuals. Once, when his team had clinched the pennant well before the season ended, he gave his two best pitchers the last ten days off so that they could rest up for the World Series. One pitcher spent his ten days off at the ball park; the other went fishing. Both performed brilliantly in the World Series.”[2]

Coach Mack was on to something – everybody is different, with different ways of being in the world that would work for them, but maybe not for the next guy – not that one is better than the other.   So, not such a bad thing to go out and catch a few Pokémon, rather than work on the sermon all day, I suppose, if it helped me to focus on the task at hand.  Only you can decide if I was successful.

But in our gospel, Mary chose the better part, because it was the better part for her at that time. Is Mary’s choice one that would work for Martha?  We don’t know, and Jesus isn’t suggesting that here.  But, given the story, it would seem she would be more inclined to feel antsy sitting quietly listening in that moment.  I know people like that, heck… and sometimes I am Mary, to be sure, but usually – and those of you who have been around me know this already, I am a lot like Martha.  And maybe some of you are instantly drawn to one or the other.  In some ways, given that the world today seems to always align with and respond to extroverts, this gospel is one for introverts to say “Rejoice! We are finally getting our due! Go Mary!” But really, it is a gospel for all of us – Marys & Marthas.  And given the news of late, it is an important one for each of us individually, and the church as a whole.

The parts that Mary and Martha have chosen are not about pitting women’s roles vs. men’s roles, of housework vs. study, or action vs. passivity.  It is about balance, not equal at all times, but balance. Mary and Martha are not opposites, but two sides of the same coin – and so is the church – and so are all of you. And these days, we need to balance both within ourselves, and as a church, in response to the world in which we live, because there is so much turmoil brewing seemingly everywhere.

On top of all that has happened in the past month, just the past week has proved deadly, with more than 80 adults and children being killed by a terrorist in Nice, France, and even more killed during a failed military coup in Turkey.  Honestly, it seems like an eternity since we had a long news cycle that did not include a mass murder, killings by and of police, or a terrorist attack (which one could reasonably argue mass murder is).  It can make anybody worry about the world around them – for themselves, and for those they love.

Add in the fact that so many people still live in poverty, or a are trapped in a system of human trafficking, or are pushed to the margins for who they are, where they come from, or who they love.  What is it that we are to do?  See, that is where this gospel becomes so very powerful.

If there is ever a time we need to be Mary, it is now.  We need to come here, to take a rest, to listen to the Word, to be nourished by Christ.  I need it, you need it, we all need it.  In far more a way than any virtual Poké Stop, church is where we can find what we need.  Is it any wonder that in times of crisis, such as we have seen these past few months, folks flock to churches and other houses of worship?  It is because for all the turmoil, we are tired and worn.  We need to sit at the feet of Jesus and be restored.

If there is ever a time we need to be Martha, it is now.  The Martha that welcomes Jesus, who provides for those wearied by the journey of life, who labors to care for others.  And in our “Marthaness” we must be cautious not to get caught up in making what we do more important than who we are doing it for – the Jesus that is in the stranger; the economic and spiritually poor; the sick; the physically, emotionally, or spiritually imprisoned, or even who we are when doing it – the body of Christ – Jesus in the world.

The same is true for the church as a whole.  There is this on-going debate across the larger church about whether we should be what some call an attractional church, which we have been for centuries, or a missional church.  It has become a sort of Mary v. Martha fight of focus – worship or mission.  But, not only is that not really what that missional movement is all about (or, at least it shouldn’t be about that) we can’t make this a zero sum game of winners and losers because we not only need both – we are both.  It is in the balance where we, and the world, will find what we need.

Being Martha in the world, doing the work of Jesus, is important and a vital part of who we are, but it is unsustainable to feed others, when you are not being fed yourself.  It’s kind of like the speech you get from the flight attendants before every take off – “In the unlikely event that the cabin loses pressure, oxygen masks will drop from the ceiling.  Place the mask over your face, and tighten with the straps on either side.  Please place the mask on yourself first, before assisting others.”  They tell you that last bit, because it will be difficult to help anyone if you are gasping for air.

As I have said many times, so many – you likely know what’s coming – church is not the destination, it is where we are given strength for the journey.  In a sense we really are a gym – a place where we are made stronger.  The church is where we can work out our faith.  And just like when we do aerobic exercises we gain a better flow of oxygen in our systems, the church is also where we are given the life sustaining oxygen of the Word, the Word of scripture, and the Word of Christ in the Eucharist.  Without that, we will find the journey ahead, the one we are called to do as the body of Christ in the world, our Martha work, to be impossible to sustain.  And by God, we need to do this work, now more than ever.

But we must not judge how this renewal happens.  For some it is in a busy way – perhaps engaging in worship roles like Lector or Usher or Choir.  For others, it is staying in the pew, or coming early for quiet time in the church.  For some it is the quiet of the smaller and more intimate 8am service, or our Labyrinth Walk and Compline, for others the sounds and larger crowd of the 10:30am choral Eucharist. And still others prefer to worship outdoors at our Last Chance Mass…on the Grass.

But no matter how we take in that Word, we need prayer and worship as a way of remembering that right here with us is Jesus.  Jesus is in the house!  That was true for Mary and Martha, and it is true for us here today.  And, Jesus is in the world too – in the eyes of those in need of love, in need of someone to speak for them, in need of peace, in need of wholeness…and Jesus is in us too, as the body of Christ.  And see, that is where both the epistle from Colossians this morning, and our processional hymn, can be misleading.

As much as I love the hymn we sang, while God may be immortal and wise, God is not “invisible.”  Jesus is also not, as the author of the epistle claims, “the image of the invisible God.”  God can be seen everywhere, even in the midst of chaos, of pain, of the horrors of the news of late.  Perhaps most especially then, because that is when humanity needs God’s presence most.  We see the grace of God in the ones who help, the ones who give their lives for others, the ones who console the grieving, and the ones who fight for change and peace.

If we look through the right lens, God will appear in our reality – seemingly everywhere – as much as I found Pokémon creatures all over my neighborhood, but had to be looking through the lens of the phone to see what seemed invisible right in front of me.  But, unlike Pokémon, God is real – fun, and engaging, yes, but real – very, very real.  And to see God at work in the world, we don’t need an iPhone, we just need to open our hearts to the Christ that is in the house – this house – seek him here, and serve him everywhere.  And we hear that clearly in the last line of that hymn, which says “O help us to see ‘tis only the splendor of light hideth thee.”

You see, when we come here as Mary, yearning for the Word, yearning to be restored, and then leave here as Martha’s to do the work we are called to do – we don’t bring God out into the world any more than Jesus did.  We join God already at work.  We follow the Holy Spirit, and as Jesus was and is in us, be a way in which people can see, touch, and experience God where they were unable to before. We are essentially the iPhones through which others can see what is already all around them.

We need to live into our Mary and Marthaness, now more than ever, that we might be renewed and join in the work – the work of being voices for justice and peace for those without a voice, the work of spreading restorative love and kindness where others have sewn hate and violence, the work of being the light of Christ in a world of darkness.

So, let us walk in the real world listening as Mary, acting as Martha, and living as Christ.

Amen.

For the audio from the 10:30am service, click here:

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Connie_Mack

[2] Bits and Pieces, December 13, 1990.

The Rev. Diana L. Wilcox
Christ Church in Bloomfield & Glen Ridge
July 17, 2016
Pentecost 9 – Year C
1st Reading – Amos 8:1-12
Psalm 52
2nd Reading – Colossians 1:15-28
Gospel – Luke 10:38-42